When the story opens, Anadea is a heart-free maid of sixteen, better
educated than most young girls, and chiefly interested in her studies.
Fearing to leave her unprovided for, her father urges her to marry, and
she, though inclined to a single life, returns a dutiful answer, begging
him to direct her choice. He fixes upon the worthy Chevalier de Semar,
and bids her prepare for the wedding.

"The Time which the necessary Preparations took up, Anadea pass'd in
modelling her Soul, as much as possible, to be pleas'd with the State
for which she was intended.--The Chevalier had many good Qualities,
and she endeavoured to add to them in Imagination a thousand more.
Never did any Woman take greater Pains to resist the Dictates of
Desire, than she did to create them ...yet she had it not in her
Power to feel any of those soft Emotions, those Impatiencies for his
Absence, those tender Thrillings in his Presence, nor any of those
agreeable Perplexities which are the unfailing Consequences of Love
...and she began, at length, to lay the Blame on her own want of
Sensibility, and to imagine she had not a Heart fram'd like those of
other Women."

At the house of a friend Anadea meets the Count de Blessure and feels
the starts of hitherto unsuspected passion. Beside this new lover the
Chevalier appears as nought. Her mind is racked by an alternation of
hope and despair.

"In Anxieties, such as hopeless Lovers feel, did the discontented
Anadea pass the Night:--She could not avoid wishing, though there was
not the least Room for her to imagine a Possibility of what she
wish'd:--She could not help praying, yet thought those Prayers a Sin.
--Her once calm and peaceful Bosom was now all Hurry and Confusion:--